Fight or Flight
by Josie Gibbons
Summary: cassies thoughts after she leaves bristol and starts afresh in new york. based mainly on my own experiences as a young person leaving my whole life behind to escape a past. possibly a bit OOC, but i like to think this is what it felt like for her too


I'm back :D finally I have a way of working again, which means that you'll be back to getting bugged from me at every opportunity.

Lots of things have changed since you last got a story from me, and that's what this piece is about really. it's a development of a character as things change drastically for them, as things go from one way to another and how they deal with it. The character I've chosen to focus around is Cassie at the end of Series Two of Skins, as I can really relate to how she was feeling when she went to New York. Like me, Cassie left everything behind to start afresh with nothing, to try and make a break and get away from everything that had been driving her so crazy. Also like me, Cassie had developed a severe drug problem before she ran away. This piece is about her, about how she works, about her mind set as she left Bristol, and as she arrived in New York. I know it may appear a bit OOC but I honestly do believe that like me all Cassie ever needed was a fresh break from it all, a chance to start afresh. Who knows, maybe this was the way she saw it, I'd like to think so anyway. I'd like to think she got her happy ever after away from the demons.

DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Cassie, Sid or any other Skins characters who may or may not be mentioned in the course of this story.

Those last days, those last days I will always remember. It was good, it was amazing, everyone was having so much fun. We were all celebrating the end of the exams, the last good summer before we all went our own ways. It was good, we were set to have the best year of our lives, and we were looking forward to it so much. And we had our problems, but we dealt with them. We were all a bit Crazy, all a bit nuts, but it was just who we were. We accepted ourselves as who we were and we got on with it, and it was fine.

And then Chris died.

And when Chris died I lost the will to live. I lost everything I had ever cared about, everything I knew that was steady. I loved Sid, there was no questions about that, but he was so up and down. There was never anything definite about him, because even if I thought he loved me his actions just made me feel like I wasn't sure so often. He could be such a pain, such a nut job. He'd blank me or go on stupid moods at the drop of a hat. And no matter how crazy about him I was, it didn't make for a very stable relationship. It just made me more ill, and ill was something I didn't need. But with Chris I could be myself. He was as messed up as I was and for that reason I knew I could trust him, knew I could tell him anything. He understood me, and could be the family I never had. I think when I was sharing the flat with him I felt safer and more at ease and more comfortable living in Bristol than I ever did in my life.

Finding him dead broke my soul.

So I packed up and left it all behind. At a moments notice I was able to just leave. It was so hard, so difficult to finally say goodbye. And I was terrified every step of the way, but it woke me up. Somehow his loss managed to make me wake up and see just how bad I had got, just how much the drugs were effecting me. Because een though they didn't kill him, in my heart I knew they had some effect and in my mind that was enough to say enough was enough.

I didn't tell anyone I was going, just packed up and left one day without so much as a goodbye. I left them to deal with the funeral, with him not being there, and I walked away from it all. I knew if I had stayed then it would have destroyed me, that I would have followed him soon afterwards, and I knew deep down that I didn't want that. Seeing him lying cold and broken in his bed made me realise just how much there was to live for, just how much death really wasn't the answer. It gave me back the reason to live, to face that choice which all humans have to make so often, to fight or flight. And yes I chose flight, but that's only because I already knew what I know now, that flight was only the first step. That there is no choice between fight and flight, because in the end you must do one so you can move on and do the other. I chose flight from Bristol, but it was only because I knew I wouldn't be able to make the full fight there, the fight which was to save my life. By leaving, by taking flight, I was opening myself up for the chance to fight my addiction once and for all, to make a good go of it and get myself fixed.

And as I now walk those streets of New York I realise once and for all that I made the right choice, that Bristol was never any good for me, that sometimes you need to make a fresh start before you're able to really become yourself. Sometimes the place you grew up isn't the place where you really belong. I know a part of me will always belong to the small streets and rainy skies of Bristol City, but that doesn't mean I have to be stuck there. I can love the place and let it own a part of my heart, but it doesn't have to be all I am. Sometimes all you need is to get away so you're able to make a fresh break, to move away from the expectations of people and just start a clean slate where no-one knows me. I know living there I just did what was expected of me, which was to take a lot of drugs and be insane, but by making this move I was finally able to get away from it. No-one knows me here, no one offers me those things which are so bad for me, and I'm even starting to eat again, to become healthy.

Maybe, maybe I'm ready to start my future, to grow up, and to move on from my problems.

I believe so. I hope so. I know so.

THE END

Reviews please?? Even if its just to tell me its really OOC… to be honest this was more my own thoughts about my move rather than Cassie's, but I'd love to think that she got the same escape I did.

Until next time.

Sami-Chan

Josie Gibbons

The one and only

Stargazing Maidens


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